De Klerk To End Last Apartheid Laws

February 02, 1991|By Howard Witt, Chicago Tribune.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — President F.W. de Klerk announced Friday that all the country`s remaining apartheid laws would be repealed this year, clearing the way for other nations to ease diplomatic and economic sanctions against South Africa.

Taking aim at the last vestiges of the hated system that has made South Africa an international pariah, De Klerk told the opening session of the country`s white-dominated parliament that he intends to nullify the Land Act, the Group Areas Act and the Population Registration Act.

These laws, which classify all citizens according to skin color and include restrictions on black land and home ownership, were introduced more than 40 years ago.

``the South African statute book will be devoid, within months, of the remnants of racially discriminatory legislation which have become known as the cornerstones of apartheid.``

Because the existing parliament, for which blacks were not permitted to vote, is dominated by De Klerk`s National Party, the repeal of the laws is assured.

The president`s latest move extends the dramatic reforms he initiated exactly a year ago: He opened the 1990 session of parliament by unbanning all black political groups and freeing African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela from 27 years in prison.

The new reforms seem certain to lead to the end of international economic sanctions against South Africa, imposed by a number of Western countries in the mid-1980s to pressure Pretoria to abandon apartheid.

The White House immediately welcomed De Klerk`s speech as ``a big step in the right direction.`` The European Community said it would allow the easing of sanctions against South Africa.

``I am happy to be able to say that we have succeeded in breaking out of the dead end of isolation,`` De Klerk said. ``. . . The anti-South African industry is facing insolvency. Sanctions are withering away.``

De Klerk also reiterated his intention ``to build a new South African nation`` based on equal rights for all.

He vowed to pursue a multiparty conference this year, to which all political groups would be invited, to discuss the adoption of a new non-racial constitution for the country. And he promised to consider ways to rectify the vast educational and economic inequities that still permeate South African society.

But in a significant omission, De Klerk did not mention restitution for the millions of blacks deprived of their land over the years when their properties were seized by the government and turned over to whites. He said the highly sensitive question of land rights would be the subject of a future ``white paper`` outlining the government`s position.

Under the terms of the Land Act and the Group Areas Act, 86 percent of South Africa`s total land was reserved for white ownership, although whites represent only 13 percent of the population.

One of De Klerk`s key advisers, Constitutional Development Minister Gerrit Viljoen, said the government was not contemplating taking any existing land away from whites to give to blacks. Instead, the racial restrictions on land ownership would be lifted and blacks would be free to purchase land on the open market.

``If you revert to the question of so-called original owners, you don`t know where you are going to draw the line,`` Viljoen told foreign

correspondents in a briefing before De Klerk`s speech. ``To go back historically would have a chaotic effect on the country.``

De Klerk also rejected the demand of the African National Congress for the establishment of an interim government, consisting of both blacks and whites, to rule the country until a new constitution can be written.

Mass African National Congress rallies and work stay-aways, staged in major cities across the country to coincide with the opening of parliament, went off peacefully.

In Cape Town, an estimated 20,000 marchers gathered under the hot summer sun to hear African National Congress leader Walter Sisulu declare that Friday`s opening of the white-dominated parliament would be the last.

``Our demand is that all oppressive and repressive legislation must go, and must go now,`` Sisulu told the cheering crowd, before word of De Klerk`s speech had spread.

The pro-apartheid Conservative Party, which opposes all of the National Party`s racial reforms, responded predictably to De Klerk`s announcements by walking out of parliament in a huff. Party leader Andries Treurnicht said De Klerk had ``struck at the heart`` of white rights by pledging to repeal the apartheid laws.

Conservative whites are particularly upset about the loss of the Group Areas Act, which segregrates nearly every neighborhood in South Africa by race.